MIND what you pop in your sandwiches tomorrow it could be a matter of life and death.

According to Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff, eating is more dangerous than putting one's life in the hands of Britain's privatised train services.

The MP an "unrepentant believer" in letting market forces shape the industry is angered by widespread criticism of Railtrack and rail operators.

More people died and more signals were passed at danger in the days of British Rail, said Mr Luff, speaking shortly before popping off to have lunch last Wednesday with the chairman of the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority, Alistair Morton.

Twelve times as many people die in car accidents as in rail crashes per passenger-kilometre" travelled, claimed the MP.

More than 3,000 people die on our roads every year, and people just blink an eye and say 'Oh well', added Mr Luff.

But if 33 people die in a train crash, that's a national scandal. It's just hypocritical.

Eating is the most dangerous thing we do, so why don't we have a national food producer, if nationalisation is safer than privatisation?

Yet most people would oppose a national food company.

The truth is we're safer with the private sector, as there's no one to bail them out with taxpayer's cash when things go wrong.

I believe Mr Luff is over-egging the political pudding. New Labour has given a generous financial hand to the private sector, rather than letting big business shoulder the entire burden.

But he's right to lambast the cynics for ignoring facts that weaken their case, in order to peddle a myth.

And if the creaking and clapped-out experience that passed for rail travel in the Thatcher years was some sort of golden age, it says a great deal about the state of the nation in those unhappy days.